Lesson 07 · 5 min
Earning by promoting: referrals and bounties
Projects pay in their own coins for bringing in users, finding bugs, or creating content. The money is real; the pitfalls are specific.
The legitimate versions
Referral programs: an exchange or project gives you a link; when someone signs up and trades, you earn a slice of fees — sometimes in the project's coin rather than cash.
Bounty and ambassador programs: rewards for translating, writing guides, finding software bugs, or growing a community. These are usually announced on the project's official site or GitHub.
Content rewards: some networks pay creators in their token when work is published or curates well on their platform.
How coins-as-rewards actually behave
Promotion rewards are often in a young project's token. Its value can swing wildly or fall to near zero. Treat the coins as a bonus, not a salary.
Some tokens are 'locked' or 'vested' — you receive them but cannot sell all at once, releasing over months. Read the terms before you count on anything.
What to avoid, full stop
Any scheme that pays you mainly for recruiting the people who recruit the people. That structure is a pyramid regardless of the coin wrapping.
Promising guaranteed returns, or shilling a token to your followers while secretly planning to sell your own. Both invite real legal trouble in many countries.
Bounty pages that want your private key or seed phrase to 'register' your rewards wallet. They need your public address only.
Worth remembering
- Real promotion rewards pay for real work or real signups.
- Reward coins are volatile and may be locked — don't bank on them.
- Register with a public address, never a private key or seed phrase.